In the Magazine: When A Pro Can’t Ride

An injury can not only affect a professional’s athletic career, but their business as well.

While recovering from a traumatic fall and broken neck after a 2015 riding accident, four-star event rider Will Faudree thought there was a good chance he’d never ride again.

Will, 36, broke his neck during a cross country round on an Advanced course at Five Points Horse Trials in Raeford, N.C., in September 2015. He had surgery to fix two crushed vertebrae and fuse them back together.

“If I break my neck again, I’m dead,” Will put it bluntly. “When you’re lying around immobile for six weeks, it does a lot to your head. Of course I had a lot of time to think about if I could ride again and what was going to happen to my horses. Every scenario is going through your head.”